Generative eBook Covers

Cool stufft, I just thinking that if you using topic modeling algorithm like LDA, then generate more informative covers :)

Those really abstract covers are quite Identicon-like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon ).

This also reminds me of the autogenerated covers on the (ridiculously overpriced) books containing only Wikipedia articles, which were equally generic-looking but still somewhat relevant (e.g. https://images.our-assets.com/fullcover/2000x/9786131724619.... , http://www.amazon.com/Aisle-Frederic-P-Miller/dp/B009CKDZII/ )

Of course, I think the saying "Don't judge an eBook by its cover" also applies...

If the purpose of covers is to visually differentiate among the set of books which are visible in a skeumorphic "bookshelf", could pre-computed image similarity metrics be used to maximize the difference between neighboring titles?

I specially liked the illustration ones. I wonder if perhaps some database of public art illustrations could be somehow consulted to generate covers for the books without illustrations?

I applaud this effort from the sense that generated book covers all seem to be so ugly and undesigned. There's nothing wrong with a generic, but well designed book cover. I mean, how many virtually identical hardbound books are there sitting on people's bookshelves...and they look beautiful instead of ugly.

http://bibliotique.net/images/080511-aa-1.jpg

http://www.dargate.com/cat/248_auction/248_images/1722.jpg

The difference is that there is some sense of trying to make them at least a little eye pleasing. Decent fonts, some pretty gold leaf designs.

This is not good enough http://i.imgur.com/YqjnSsF.png

Some kind of more clever generative art I think is called for. It should even have some kind of sensible themeing, like all books from the same author look kind of alike or something.

http://graywolfseo.com/wp-content/uploads/library-shelf.jpg

I'm not sure I like how the examples provided here look especially, but I think the idea is a good one.